Social Problems.

By Henry George, author of " Progress and Poverty." London : Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.

A new work, from the pen of the author of "Progress and Poverty." is sure to attract the attention of all reading and thinking persons in every English speaking community, and we, accordingly, lose no time in laying before our readers some account of the volume entitled " Social Problems," which has just been published simultaneously in England and America. Among the many millions who have perused Mr. Henry George's elaborate but most eloquent treatise, there is probably only a comparatively small percentage who accept the diagnosis, he there makes of the evils that afflict our modern civilisation as substantially correct, and believe that he has traced these evils to their true cause. As to the efficacy and practicability of the draconic social reform or revolution, which he prescribes as the primary and indispensable remedy for the prevailing and ever increasing poverty and misery of modern society, it most be presumed that still fewer of the students of his works are prepared to agree with him. But it must be confessed that Mr. George has aroused the keenest and most wide-spread interest in social questions of the greatest and most urgent moment, and whatever hesitation and doubt may be felt regarding his doctrines, the change in the relation which the people at large occupy towards the land, which he advocates, and the mode by which he proposes to effect this change, there is no denying that the desire to become acquainted with his teachings on these questions has become almost universal. It has already become evident that he cannot safely be overlooked or ignored, however otherwise he may be dealt with. If familiarity with his arguments, and the conclusions to which they lead him, does not excite contempt, it may at least be trusted to moderate in some degree the startling novelty which attaches to them.

Mr. George's volume entitled " Social Problems" is, we understand, founded on a series of papers he contributed to "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newsprint" last year, and may be described as a popularised recapitulation of the leading principles set forth in "Progress and Poverty," with now illustration showing their bearing, on certain tendencies at work in civilised society, which was not noted in the larger and more comprehensive book. In the first of the 22 chapters with which the volume is divided, its author contends that from the material and intellectual progress which has marked the course of the present century it follows that its closing years must bring up social questions more vast and intricate than mankind has ever been confronted with before. We seem, he says, to have entered one of those periods in the lives of peoples which specially call for earnestness and intelligent. The law that the increasing complexity and delicacy of organisation which give higher capacity and increased power are accompanied by increased wants and dangers, and require, therefore, increased intelligence, which runs through nature, holds sway also in the progression of human society :—

" With the beginnings of society arises the need for social intelligence—for that consensus of individual intelligence which forms a public opinion, a public conscience, a public will, and is manifested in law, institutions, and administration. As society develops, a higher and higher degree of this social intelligence is required for the relation of individuals to each other becomes more intimate and important, and the increasing complexity of the social organisation brings liability to new dangers. In the rude beginning, each family produces its own food, makes its own clothes, builds its own house, and when it moves furnishes its own transportation. Compare with this independence the intricate interdependence of the denizens of a modern city. Thus does the well-being of each become more and more dependent upon the well-being of all—the individual more and more subordinate to society."

As to the dangers which menace not one country alone but modern civilisation itself these dangers, in Mr. George's opinion, " do not show that a higher civilisation is struggling to be born—that the needs and the aspirations of men have outgrown conditions institutions that before sufficed." In this way the writer seeks to established that the progress of civilisation requires that more and more intelligence be devoted to social affairs, and this not the intelligence of the few, but that of the many ; and, that with all our progress in the arts which produce wealth, we have made no progress in securing its equitable distribution. Moreover, " the intelligence required for the solving of social problems is not a mere thing of the intellect. It must be animated with the religious sentiment and warm with sympathy for human suffering. It must stretch beyond, whether it be the self-interest of the few, or the many. It must seek justice. For at the bottom of every social problem we shall find a social wrong."

The fact that the standpoint from which "Social Problems" is written is American, and that much of it has direct reference to America, renders it all the more valuable to the Australian. Taking the American Republic as the van-leader of modern civilisation, or as some of us would prefer to say, of modern democracy, Mr. George proceeds to consider the political dangers with which it is threatened. As readers of " Progress and Poverty" will be well aware, Mr. George is no fondly-foolish admirer of the United States, which he regards as little more than a republic in name. "The experiment of popular government in the United States," he frankly and boldly tells us, " is clearly a failure. Not that it is a failure everywhere and in everything. An experiment of this kind does not have to be fully worked out to be proved a failure. But speaking generally of the whole country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, our Government by the people has in large degree become, is in larger degree becoming, government by the strong and unscrupulous," And what are the causes of this failure? Mr. George's answer to this question may be gathered from the following paragraph, which we are tempted to quote entire:—

"The rise in the United States of monstrous fortunes, the aggregation of enormous wealth in the hands of corporations, necessarily implies the loss by the people of governmental control. Democratic force, may be maintained, but there can be as much tyranny and misgovernment under democratic forms as any other ; in fact, they lend themselves most readily to tyranny and misgovernment. Forms count for little. The Romans expelled their kings, and continued to abhor the very name of king. But, under the name of Cæsars and Imperators, that at first meant no more than our 'boss,' they crouched before tyrants more absolute than kings. We have already, under the popular name of 'bosses,' developed political Cæsars in municipalities and states. If this development continues, in time there will come a national boss. We are young ; and we are growing. The day may arise when the 'boss of America' will be to the modern world what Cæsar was to the Roman world. This at least is certain: Democratic government in more than name can only exist where wealth is distributed with something like equality —where the great mass of the citizens are personally free and independent, neither fettered by their poverty nor made subject by their wealth. There is, after all, some sense in a property qualification. The man who is dependent on a master for his living is not a free man. To give the suffrage to slaves is only to give votes to their owners. That universal suffrage may add to, instead of decreasing, the political power of wealth, we see when mill owners and mine-operators vote their hands. The freedom to earn, without fear or favour, a comfortable living, ought to go with the freedom to vote. Thus alone can a sound basis for republican institutions be secured. How can a man be said to have a country when be has no right to a square inch of soil; when he has nothing but his hands, and, urged by starvation, must bid against his fellows for the privilege of using them ? When it comes to voting tramps, some principle has been carried to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme. I have known elections to be decided by the carting of paupers from the almshouse to the poll. But such decisions can scarcely be in the interest of good government."

Of combinations formed for political and financial purposes in the United States, Mr. George gives us a startling account. "There are sovereign States," he tells us, " so completely in the hands of rings and companies, that it seems as if nothing short of a revolutionary uprising of the people could dispossess them." A few sentences further on, we read :—

"As for the great railway managers, they may well say, to use the phrase of the greatest of them, 'The people be damned !' When they want the power of the people they buy the peoples' masters. The map of the United States is coloured to show States and Territories. A map of real political powers would ignore State lines. Here would be a big patch representing the domains of Vanderbilt ; there Jay Gould's dominions would be brightly marked. In another place would be set off the empire of Stanford and Huntington ; in another the newer empire of Henry Villard ; the States and parts of States that own the sway of the Pennsylvanian Central would be distinguished from those ruled by the Baltimore and Ohio ; and so on. In our National Senate, sovereign members of the Union are supposed to be represented ; but what are more truly represented are railway kings and great moneyed interests, though occasionally a mine-jobber from Nevada or Colorado, not inimical to the ruling powers, is suffered to buy himself a seat for glory. And the Bench, as well as the Senate, is being filled with the henchmen of companies. A railway king makes his attorney a Judge of last resort, as the great lord used to make his chaplain a bishop."

The picture is certainly not attractive ; but, dark as it is, it is true. As Mr. George remarks in the next chapter of the work before us, we are only beginning to recognise how important America has been to Europe as furnishing an outlet for the restless, the dissatisfied, the oppressed, and the downtrodden. The possibility of further westward expansion is visibly coming to an end. Not, he thinks, that there is any danger of America being really over-populated. Europe to-day is not overpopulated. "The social pressure which forces on our shores this swelling tide of immigration arises not from the fact that the land of Europe is all in use, but that it is all appropriated. This," he continues, " will soon be our case us well. Our land will not all be used; but it will all be 'fenced in.' " And proof that land, which in America is still comparatively cheap, is certain to rise shortly to a point that has never hitherto been known, Mr. George points to "the avidity with which Capitalists, and especially foreign capitalists, who realise what is the value of land where none is left over which population may freely spread, are purchasing land in the United States. This movement," he says, "has been going on quietly for some years, until now it seems as if there is scarcely a rich English peer or wealthy English banker who does not, either individually or as a member of some company, own a large tract of our new land, and the purchase of large bodies for foreign account is going on every day." In this respect the experience of Australia is similar to that of America. Surveying the earth in search of an outlet for the dissatisfied and oppressed of Europe, Mr. George turns his eyes in our direction, but dismisses us with the remark that "The arable land of Australia would not merely be soon well populated by anything like the emigration that Europe is pouring on America, but there the forestalling of land goes on as rapidly as here." To Asia, mother of peoples and religions, which yet contains the greater part of the human race, millions who live and die in all but utter unconsciousness of our modern world, Mr. George incidentally directs attention in this connection, and "in the awakening of these peoples by the impact of Western civilisation lies," he asserts, "one of the greatest problems of the future." There can be little doubt that the possibility of expansion over virgin soil which has been one of the most important conditions under which our civilisation has bean developing, will shortly cease, and that the social pressure everywhere will increase. Whilst economically and socially the condition of the masses of the people throughout the civilised world has been growing more and more hopeless, they have, through the spread of primary education, cheap printing, the railway, &c, enjoyed many advantages that were denied even the richest and most powerful a generation ago. There are obviously opposing tendencies at work. "All over the world the masses of men are becoming more and more dissatisfied with conditions under which their fathers would have been contented. It is in vain that they are told that their situation has been much improved ; it is in vain that it is pointed out to them that comforts, amusements, opportunities are within their reach that their fathers would not have dreamed of. The having got so much only leads them to ask why they should not have more. Desire grows by what it feeds on. Man is not like the ox. He has no fixed standard of satisfaction. To arouse his ambition, to educate him to new wants, is as certain to make him discontented with his lot as to make that lot harder. We resign ourselves to what we think cannot be bettered ; but when we realise that improvement is possible, then we become restive. This is the explanation of the paradox that De Tocqueville thought astonishing: That the masses find their position the more intolerable the more it is improved. The slave codes were wise that prescribed pains and penalties for teaching bondsmen to read, and they reasoned well who opposed popular education on the ground that it would bring revolution."
Under the title "The March of Concentration," Mr. George next proceeds to note the massing of population in cities, and the concentration of industry and trade, which he ascribes mainly to the great agencies of steam and machinery. That the ownership of land is concentrating in America, and that farming is assuming a larger scale, are facts that are evident. In 1880, there were no fewer than 1,624,601 tenant farmers in the United States. Owing to the improvements in agricultural machinery, which make farming a business requiring more capital, the enhanced value of land, the changes produced by railways, and the advantage which special rates give the large over the small producer, a new era of farming has set in in America which involves the reduction of the great body of farmers farming their own land to the ranks of tenants and labourers. In all other branches of industry the same process is going on; and all the tendencies of the present are not merely to the concentration, but to the perpetuation, of great fortunes. Proceeding to analyse great fortunes, Mr. George finds it difficult to instance any case that was really due to the legitimate growth of capital obtained by industry. An acquaintance who died recently in San-Francisco, leaving four million dollars, which will go to heirs to be looked up in England, did not get his wealth by industry, skill, or temperance. " He became rich by getting hold of a piece of land in the early days, which, as San Francisco grew, became very valuable. His wealth represented not what he had earned, but what the monopoly of this bit of the earth's surface enabled him to appropriate of the earnings of others." Another case is cited of a man who left three million dollars, and who to the day of his death was a stanch protectionist, and said free trade would ruin the "infant industries" of America. This millionaire owed his fortune to having, with the assistance of others, lobbied a bill through Parliament, which, by way of " protecting American work- men against the pauper labour of Europe," gave him the advantage of a 60 per cent. tariff. In Mr. George's opinion, " This element of monopoly, of appropriation, and spoliation will, when we come to analyse them, be found to largely account for all great fortunes." Let it not be supposed, however, that Mr. George is opposed to capital. " Capital," he says, "is a good ; the capitalist is a helper, if he is not also a monopolist. We can safely let anyone get as rich as he can if he will not despoil others in doing so."

Few people will differ from Mr. George in denying that this is not yet, in every respect, the best of all possible worlds ; and equally few, it is to be feared, will be prepared at once to assent to the proposition which forms the title of the succeeding chapter, "That we all might be rich." Of course the meaning that is here attached to the word "rich" is having enough wealth to satisfy all reasonable wants. "Already, though we have not noticed it, Mr. George has taken occasion to complain of the attitude that Christian Churches and Christian preachers have assumed towards the prevailing poverty and misery of modern society. Here he not only points to those professors of political economy who teach that the poverty of large classes in our highest civilisation is the result of social laws of which it is idle to complain, but also to those ministers of religion who preach that this is the condition which an all-wise, all-powerful Creator intended for his children. "So accustomed are we," says he, "to poverty, that even the preachers of what passes for Christianity tell us that the Great Architect of the Universe, to whose infinite skill all nature testifies, has made such a botch job of this world that the vast majority of the human creatures whom he has called into it are condemned by the conditions He has imposed to want, suffering, and brutalism, toil that gives no opportunity for the development of mental powers, must pass their lives in a hard struggle to merely live. Yet who can look about him," he adds, "without seeing that, to whatever cause poverty may be due, it is not due to the niggardliness of nature, without seeing that it is blindness or blasphemy to assume that the Creator has condemned the masses to hard toil for a bare living ?" To social mal-adjustments which deny to labour access to the natural opportunities of labour, and rob the labourer of his just reward, Mr. George ascribes the enormous waste of productive power which at present goes on all round. Under such conditions as prevail among us, we must, he asserts, have chronic poverty, and all the social evils it inevitably brings ; "under such conditions there would be poverty in Paradise." That the Scripture text, "The poor ye have always with you," has been wrested to the devil's service has been alleged before. " 'The poor ye have always with you,' said Christ; but," Mr. George remarks "all his teachings supply the limitation 'until the coming of the Kingdom!' In that Kingdom of God on earth, that kingdom of justice and love for which He taught His followers to strive and pray, there will be no poor. But though the faith and the hope and the striving for this kingdom are the very essence of Christ's teaching, the stanchest disbelievers and revilers of its possibility are found among those who call themselves Christians. Queer ideas of the Divinity have some of these Christians who hold themselves orthodox and contribute to the conversion of the heathen. A very rich orthodox Christian said to a newspaper reporter a while ago, on the completion of a large work, out of which he is said to have made millions, ' We have been peculiarly favoured by Divine Providence. Iron never was so cheap before, and labour has been a drug in the market.' " We refrain from making any comments on Mr. George's criticism of the attitude the Christian churches and clergy present towards the more radical land reformers of the day. It will be enough in the meantime simply to direct attention to it, and remark that the agitation for the abolition of private property in land seems to be entering into a new phase and assuming a decidedly religious character.

There can be no dispute, Mr. George thinks, as to the principle which would secure the just distribution of wealth. " It is that which gives wealth to him who makes it, and secures wealth to him who saves it." Further on he says : " I ask in behalf of the poor nothing whatever that properly belongs to the rich. Instead of weakening and confusing the idea of property, I would surround it with stronger sanctions. Instead of lessening the incentive to the production of wealth, I would make it more powerful by making the reward more certain. Whatever any man has added to the common stock of wealth, or has received of the free will of him who did produce it, let that be his as against the world—his to use or to give, to do with it whatever he may please, so long as such use does not interfere with the equal freedom of others. For my part, I would put no limit on acquisition. No matter how many millions any man can get by methods which do not involve the robbery of others, they are his; let him have them." There is no mistaking these declarations, and it is necessary to remember them to avoid misconception of Mr. George's position.

It will not be supposed that we have made anything approaching to an exhaustive exposition of "Social Problems," long as our notice of it already is. We have not even reached matter that has a very special interest and importance in New South Wales and the other Australian colonies. On another occasion we may direct attention to the chapters headed "The American Farmer" and "City and Country," in the former of which the interests of the cultivator in his own small farm are considered, while in the latter the urban aspects of Mr. George's land reform are touched upon. From what we have said and cited, however, it will be apparent that, although there is no homogeneity of form in this book, the separate chapters of which it is composed are nevertheless intimately connected with each other. All culminate in the doctrine with which Mr. George's name during the past two or three years has been so intimately associated. Of the relation of the existing land system to chattel slavery, which is in fact, Mr. George says, merely the rude and primitive mode of property in man, our author speaks at some length. The southern planters of America, he tells us, do not regret the abolition of slaves, "They get out of the freed men as tenants as much as they got out of them as slaves." "What," he asks "would the New England manufacturers gain by the enslavement of his operatives? The competition with each other of so-called free men, who are denied all right to the soil of what is called their country, brings him labour cheaper and more conveniently than would chattel slavery. That a people can be enslaved just as effectually by making property of their lands as by making property of their bodies, is a truth that conquerors in all ages have recognised, and that as society developed, the strong and unscrupulous who desired to live off the labour of others, have been prompt to see. . . By making property of the land instead of the person, much care, supervision, and expense are saved the proprietors, and though no particular slave is owned by a particular master, yet the one class appropriates the labour of the other class as before," With a few sentences from the chapter headed "The First Great Reform," we shall bring this notice of "Social Problems" to a close. "Do what we may, we can accomplish nothing real or lasting until we secure to all the first of those equal and unalienable rights with which, as our Declaration of Independence has it, man is endowed by his Creator—the equal and unalienable right to the use and benefit of natural opportunities. There are people who are always trying to find some means between right and wrong—people who, if they were to see a man about to be unjustly beheaded, might insist that the proper thing to do would be to chop off his feet. These are the people who, beginning to recognises the importance of the land question, propose in Ireland or England such measures as judicial valuation of rents and peasant proprietary ; and in the United States, the reservation to actual settlers of what is left of the public lands, and the limitation of estatee. Nothing whatever can be accomplished by such timid, illogical measures. If we cure social disease we must go to the root. . . There is no escape from it. If we would save the Republic before social inequality and political demoralisation have reached the point when no salvation is possible, we must assert the principle of the Declaration of Independence, acknowledge the equal and unalienable rights which inhere in man by endowment of the Creator, and make land common property."

 The Sydney Morning Herald 2 April 1884,